Thys van der Molen is Professor of Primary Care Respiratory Medicine in Groningen, The Netherlands, and is co-chair of the Governance Board of the Makerere University Lung Institute.

His main research interests include: Burden of respiratory diseases (asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) in high and low income communities, integrated care, and the development of outcome measures, symptom and diagnostic questionnaires. He developed the Clinical COPD Questionnaire (CCQ) (www.ccq.nl), which aims to measure health status in patients with COPD. The CCQ has been translated into 84 languages and was included in the Global Initiative for Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease (GOLD) 2013 update. He is the Responsible Investigator for the development of the Inhaled Corticosteroids Questionnaire (ICQ) (now translated into 19 languages) (www.icqscale.nl), which aims to measure patient-perceived side effects of inhaled corticosteroids. He also developed the Bronchial Hyperresponsivenes Questionnaire (BHQ), which aims to measure bronchial hyperresponsiveness in patients with asthma and is currently developing the Small Airways Disease Tool. (SADT). He (co) –authored over 200 international scientific publications.

Professor van der Molen is the Founding President of the International Primary Care Respiratory Group (IPCRG), was a member of the GOLD executive Committee between 2002 and 2008, he is a member of the local Dutch asthma COPD GP group (CAHAG) and member of the Board at the Groningen Research Institute of Asthma and COPD (GRIAC). He is member of the Governance board of CERTE laboratories.